I’ve fallen behind dramatically on posts here at Kritter Krazy, and have neglected a few things online for a while because I decided to take a break from the computer for a bit. Life was a bit stressful and rushed, but I’m sorry that I didn’t notify everyone earlier. So I hope you’ll all understand.

Just to update everyone; I thought that I would post a few important events and other happenings that haven’t been posted on here yet.

First of all, our family has not held a memorial burial for Pepper yet, but plan to as soon as possible. Everyone just started back up in school, so we will need to wait until we have a chance to drive and pick her up. The vets are taking care of her body for now, until we decide to get her. I’ve found it hard to not see her come greet us when we get back from school, but I know that what we did was best for her.

August 21, 2011 – Kittens Came Home

For the last couple days before Sunday, we all were on the lookout for any kittens or “teenage” cats that needed a home. There were so, so many ads in newspaper and so many options at the rescue that we decided to look for some. First we checked at a local rescue, but we didn’t really see any that we liked. We then called a few phone numbers off of some ads, and one ended up calling back. He told us that he didn’t live too far off from where we were at (at that time), and that he had 2 litters of kittens at his house.

When we got there, the house smelled like smoke, was messy, and there were cats running all around upstairs. The guy was pretty nice though and had good intentions, but I don’t think his place was the greatest environment for these kittens to be living in. We were going there to pick up just one kitten, but we thought that it would be better with more than one so we ended up picking out two of the 2 month old kittens.

They were so adorable, especially the smaller ones. The kittens we picked out were a light shade in color, both gray. The one that we think is a boy has this really cool pattern of light gray/white stripes across his back and sides. He is mostly dark and light gray. The other one that we think is a girl has calico coloring, but mostly gray with pale orange blotches around the face, tail and belly area. We’ve already came up with a name for the girl; Leia; the princess off of Star Wars. We haven’t come up with a name for the male, but are still working on it.

August ??, 2011 – Goldfish Came Home

Before getting the kittens, we got two goldfish for my sisters. One was a white and orange goldfish, whom we called Citrus. The other was a golden and black goldfish, whom we named Mushu. They have settled in really nicely, but for some reason Luthias doesn’t seem to know what they are! He is a bit rough around them, but I guess he isn’t used to other fish being in the tank with him. So far, they all get along and are eating well.

The Budgies

Kasper and Froot Loop are doing pretty good. Their wings are all grown in now and they can fly properly too. They really enjoy coming out to fly sometimes because get restless in their cages. I’m trying to make new kinds of toys for the budgies too, and I’m making an effort to be more creative with the toys. So far, I think they’re coming along pretty nicely.

Tomorrow I’ll hopefully be posting about more things that I missed out on.

Pepper didn’t get any better yesterday, she was still in a bad condition and the vets said that she was still not responding. As a family we decided that it was best to put her to sleep. She had a good life with us, and we didn’t want her to suffer anymore.

We’ll all miss her very much, she was such a cuddly cat and always wanted our attention. Ginger was looking around for her yesterday, I hope he doesn’t get too lonely. We’re planning on bringing her back and showing her to Ginger, just so that he knows what happened. We’re having a burial for her sometime afterwards, next to Koko’s area.

We are also planning on getting a new friend for Ginger in the future, to keep him company. It’ll be an adopted one, that needs a home. Hopefully Ginger will end up liking him or her. 🙂

Lately, Pepper hasn’t been doing well. When we got back from our vacation trip, we found out that she had a weird coughing noise coming from her throat. When she breathed, there was almost a crackling noise inside. We were a bit concerned and planned a trip to vet the next Tuesday. Later, her nose started bleeding. That’s when we got really scared. She just didn’t look good at all. She stopped grooming herself, and had scraggly fur because of it.

When we brought her to the animal clinic, the vet checked her out and gave her two shots and some medicine for us to give to her. Pepper had a bit of a fever, so she got a shot for that. She also got another shot to last her the day for medicine. The next couple of days didn’t go well either. She seemed to stop eating, and refused to take her medicine. We only managed to get one more pill into her, but couldn’t give her any more. We had to force feed her it too.

We kept Pepper inside more often so that we could keep a better eye on her, only giving her small breaks to go outside. The next couple of nights, I kept her with me in my room to make her comfortable. She kept getting worse and weaker. Yesterday morning, she woke me up because she was meowing very loudly.

She was meowing so loudly that she woke up my parents when I brought her upstairs. I couldn’t get her to stop, and she was sort of staring around. While I was holding her, she accidentally urinated on my shirt. I felt so sorry for her, she couldn’t hold it in. When I put her down to clean up, she just sort of flopped down on the ground and stared. Her pupils were very wide and she didn’t move much. I was so scared.

I made up a little box for her to lay in, and put in a few layers of towels for her to be comfortable in it. She wouldn’t move, so I picked her up and had to put her in myself. The poor thing just kept staring, but I sat with her for a little bit to comfort her and petted her head and back. My parents meanwhile got a hold of an emergency vet nearby, and he said he would be coming through our way soon so he would stop in to check Pepper out.

When he arrived, it was around 11:30 AM. Pepper was still staring around, but she was purring more and looked less alarmed. The vet said that she could have tumors in her throat, so we decided to ask him to take her with him to the animal hospital overnight. Pepper left with him not too long after that, and said he would call the next day to tell us how Pepper was doing.

My Dad got a call about her this afternoon, and he said it didn’t look too good. The vets said that she wasn’t responding well, and they found out that she was blind, couldn’t smell and couldn’t hear either. They tested her reactions to different things, and that was what they said. They said it was likely caused by brain damage from what they could tell, but they don’t know how that happened.

I feel so sorry for her right now, I can’t stop thinking about her. They said that they would keep her overnight again and do the best they can, but if she doesn’t show any changes or improvement by tomorrow then we decided that it would be best to put her to sleep. I’m hoping and praying now that she makes it through alright, but I can only hope for the best.

In my post “Gone On Vacation” I remember posting about the gifts that I purchased for my pets while I was away. I never really got around to posting about it, but here is a picture of the millet I got for the budgies.

Millet Galore!

I finally opened the bag last night and discovered that it was really light to hold. The piece of millet I took out didn’t seem really full and fluffy, but the budgies really enjoyed it. 🙂 I’ll be checking through the bag later on to see if all the pieces are the same, or if it was just that one.

The other gifts I bought were a pair of squeaking tennis balls, and a sort of tug-of-war teddy bear for Rocky and the other dogs. They were both a huge hit, and the teddy bear suffered because of it. Rocky loved it so much that he tore of one of its ears and pulled some stuffing out. I’m thinking next time I’ll be getting a more durable chew toy.

Yeah! Yet another month has arrived, and now it’s August! August makes me a bit sad because it just reminds me that we only have a whole month left of summer break, and everyone will be back to school or work again! I’m planning on trying to do a bunch of new things this month before my summer break ends so that I won’t have to worry about missing out on any chances to do them.

One thing that I really want to try this month is bringing the budgie boys outside for some sunshine and fresh air. They never really get to go outside, so I’m planning on getting them used being in their travel cage for outside time. I’ll be taking any chance I get to bring them out, especially when it’s nice and warm outside. Hopefully it will be warm enough for me to give them a little mist bath. 🙂

I’m planning on getting another entry done by this Friday for the Healthy Foods for Birds page, and this time it is going to be Broccoli! Someone I know requested that I do Broccoli next just for fun, so I’ll be working on that throughout the week.

I still have to get those pictures up of the gifts I got for the budgies when I was away, but never got a chance yet. I’m also planning on giving them a nice fresh food supper tomorrow with a few new foods in it, so hopefully that will end up working out.